


Of Ruling And Reality

by little-smartass (Linxcat)



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: (sort of...you'll understand), F/M, I guess it could be considered kind of unsettling, asexual!vetinari, plays with the disc's concept of reality and belief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7298437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linxcat/pseuds/little-smartass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hasn’t seen him in nearly six months. Oh, he’s been around. She just refused to look, because when you run the world you gaze down at it from dizzying heights, and that can warp even the most sturdy of minds.</p><p>She's spent most of her life fighting the ghosts of her past. What is one more?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Ruling And Reality

There is no crown this time.

Centuries ago, so far in the past that even her memories are getting a little blurry, there was one. It was a tiara, twisted and beautiful, polished silver and black onyx, almost as sinister as the blood on it’s wearer’s fangs. It was hand-forged for her under the orders of a small man who wore a great crown and ruled an Empire greater still. He put it on her head himself and called her his daughter, his best creature, his most terrifying monster, and there were celebrations and blood and blood and blood.

This time, Margolotta comes home from a hard day of arguing with dwarf conservatives - it would be so much easier to just have them all disappear, she thinks in annoyance - sits down in her chair and understands that the Disc is hers. From Hub to Rim, her word is the law, although few who abide by it actually realise it.

She marvels at it for a moment, and then she sets back to working. She really needs to deal with those dwarves. The idea of having the mine collapse on them is definitely appealing in its simplicity.

“The simplest and the best are not always the same, my dear,” a voice reminds her casually. The voice has been a constant presence over the past fifty years, and sometimes Margolotta wonders if she is mad enough to be hallucinating all the time; imagining the voice and the kisses too.

Or she would wonder if she had enough of the damn time to do it.

“I know,” she answers, still irritated, and calls for more ink.

She feels the soft touch of fingers brushing the back of her neck, followed by a gentle press of lips, “Someone’s testy,” comes the murmur against her skin. She shrugs it off, nods to Igor - she keeps him on out of sentiment, more than anything, but he is still incredibly efficient - as he passes her the ink. His gaze focuses on a spot just behind her, just for a split second before he leaves, and she wonders, she hopes-

“Don’t you have a city to pester?” she mutters around the pen lid she’s holding in her mouth as she unscrews it to replace the ink capsule (one of Leonard’s. Gods she misses that brilliant ridiculous man. Things were…more simple back then). There’s a very deliberate touch of teeth on the spot just below her ear when she lowers the pen back down to write and she hisses, almost spattering ink right across the treaty she’d been trying to sign, and spins.

Something lurches inside of her - it can’t be her heart, that hasn’t beat for centuries, and her stomach no longer requires feeding, so she is not sure what it is - at the sight of his face, calm and smirking just a little bit and those eyes, those _eyes_.

She hasn’t seen him in nearly six months. Oh, he’s been around. She just refused to look, because when you run the world you gaze down at it from dizzying heights, and that can warp even the most sturdy of minds, and- and she fears-

“You don’t believe I exist,” he says simply, that infuriating smile still playing over his lips. Today he hasn’t got a goatee and his hair is messy and just a little bit curly. Just how she likes it best. Like it was when she first saw him.

“No.” she says, and it is almost superfluous because he _knows_ but she needs to hear the words leave her own mouth. She needs to know she's still here herself.

He shrugs, drawing closer, pushing an errant ringlet behind her ear, “Does it matter?”

She lets out a huff and he quickly carries on, “I've stood beside you for years. Have I ever steered you wrong? Have I ever hurt you?”

“No,” she admits, but her jaw is tense and she’s scrutinising him for any trace of manipulation.

He raises an eyebrow, “Do you want me to leave?”

“ _No_.” she says immediately. He seems pleased.

“Well, then,” he takes her by the hands and lifts her to her feet, “Does it matter?”

His hands touch her, caressing her shoulders in slow, confident motions, taking the night’s worries away. His lips trail down her cheek to her neck. They felt real enough for her; real and maddening. Margolotta fights not to close her eyes, not to lose herself in those touches. It has been so long since…

Memories come back again, sudden, unbidden, as slim hands grip her hips and blunt human teeth nip at her ear. There had been a time when she spent her days indulging in every pleasure she could think of. Men and women alike would flood her quarters, and she made them scream in pain and pleasure. But then came the age one had to leave old habits to survive, and as Margolotta began her search for ways of coexisting with humans, not ruling them, she came to despise her old self - senseless creature which lived to conquer and destroy and had no measure of self-control whatsoever. Margolotta understood that if she was ever to thrive again, it was necessary start learning the ways of her prey, and sating her curiosity proved so much more… satisfying than other appetites.

But in the here and now his kisses are becoming more and more greedy, leaving her shuddering in want, and her fingers claw at his hands, trying to stop him. She grasps him by the shoulders and holds him at arms' length, swallowing heavily.

“You are not _real,_ ” she snarls, hating the crack in her voice, “Havelock and I, we were not – he had no _interest_ in these things,” She swallows again and pushes the heat away, calls on her strength, her control, her will. She's spent most of her life fighting the ghosts of her past. What is one more?

He leans in closer in response, “But _you_ have an interest in them, don't you, Margolotta? We were colleagues, allies, confidants, whatever could pass as _friends_ in our game of political smoke and mirrors...but you would have taken more, so much more, if I'd offered it.”

“You gave everything to your city. There was nothing else _left_ to take.”

“Yes,” he says, brushing her hands off like her fierce vampire grip is nothing but dust, and standing even closer. So close, though not touching. Just waiting. He is expecting her to choose him, and he will wait until she does. They've played this game before.

“But I'm here now,” he says, smiling that infuriatingly knowing smile, and it seems oddly perverse the way it rekindles the heat she'd just managed to stifle, “And I've got all the time in the world.”

“You don't _exist_.” she grinds out between her teeth.

“Does it matter?” He asks again.

She clenches and unclenches her fists. It _does_ matter. It _should_ matter. She wants it to matter. She shouldn't sully his memory with these ridiculous...flights of fancy.

“I'm here because you called me, Margolotta. Every time you looked out at the world and wondered, what would _Havelock_ do? I heard you and I'm here. I'm everything that's left of him in this world, I'm the ripples still playing out through life that he set in motion. A man's not dead while his name is still spoken. You know that.”

“You are not possible,” she snarls, breathing deep through her nose, knowing it a lie even as she says it. She's heard things in her long life, read studies about the bizarre powers at work in their world, sometimes manipulated it herself. If enough people look up into the sky and truly sincerely believe...

That still doesn't account for the hungry gleam in his eyes. Even when he was little more than a teenager, when confronted with her rather unsubtle advances he'd still preferred games over the chessboard to those in bed. Perhaps she was to blame; maybe she'd warped his memory with her own weariness.

“Tell me to go, Margolotta,” he challenges, voice low and with a huskiness that leaves her fighting not to squirm, “Tell me you don't want me here and you'll never see me again.”

She looks into those piercing blue eyes and hates, hates, hates him.

It had taken her over three centuries to realise what it was she truly craved, and it wasn’t blood and power. It was control. And all control started with the self. Ever since she'd taken the black ribbon and sworn off the traditions of her kind, she held onto that control. She revelled in it. It was her truest delight - watching her enemies and allies alike dance to her little tunes. Sometimes she had to retreat, to accept her defeat, to start anew, but ever since the day she first tasted cow’s blood she never let anyone take it away. Only Havelock had ever refused to submit to her will, refused to play along, dared to _challenge_ her.

But now the years have grown long and she is old and so very tired of being wound so tight, and she is kissing him - him, or the spectre of him, or whatever he is - and his lips are swollen from her madness. She draws him in, holds him close, and he makes a pleased murmur against her neck and presses his palms against her breasts in an impudent motion he never would have made whilst alive. She knows that should trouble her more than it does.

Lady Margolotta von Uberwald is always in control. She survived her hardships and her losses and grievances and came out on top, all because of that. And now the Disc bows to her - although not literally, of course, that would been too old-fashioned.

But today…

Maybe she _is_ mad. Maybe it is just a weakness, that inability to move on, to leave her past behind.

But does it really matter?

A long time ago, young man called Havelock Vetinari knocked on her castle door and talked to her about control.

It was only fitting that he take that control apart.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in an email I sent Batty like three years ago and was pretty chuffed with it, so polished it up a bit. I headcanon Vetinari as asexual and his relationship with Margolotta being more like "queer platonic soulmates" rather than "sex and romance", but I liked the idea of there maybe being a little bit of one-sided longing from Margolotta when she gets nostalgic after his death.


End file.
